18 Wednesday Jan 2017
Posted in Abbreviations, Editing, Grammar, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Numbers, Punctuation, Style Manuals
≈ Comments Off on New and Updated GPO Style Manual.
GPO Style Manual: new edition, Barco 3.0: Law Library Reference
The Government Publishing Office has published a thorough and updated Style Manual, which includes rules for punctuation, grammar, abbreviations, and computer terms, among other things. You will find “New Features and Enhancements” at https://www.govinfo.gov/features/release-notes/govinfo-beta-launch.
19 Sunday Jun 2016
Posted in Abbreviations, Contract Law, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on Using Abbreviations and Definitions in Legal Writing.
Don’t Use Definition-First Autonomous Definitions, by Ken Adams, Adams on Contract Drafting Blog
http://www.adamsdrafting.com/dont-use-definition-first-autonomous-definitions/
Ken Adams provides excellent examples of how to use an abbreviations and definitions. Use this for contracts, but keep in mind that it also works in pleadings, motions, discovery, etc.
When you use abbreviations and definitions for a person, a law, an event, or contract, it makes your writing tighter and more concise. It makes sense to abbreviate lengthy names, but take which definition you pick. While striving for a way to make your writing less wordy, don’t let the abbreviation or definition de-humanize your client or overly sanitize your client’s case. -CCE
16 Wednesday Sep 2015
Posted in Abbreviations, Acronyms, Brief Writing, Citations, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Parentheticals, Punctuation, Quotations, Readability, String Citations, The Bluebook
≈ Comments Off on When Peter Martin, aka Bluebook Yoda, Talks About The Bluebook, I Listen.
Tags
20th edition of The Bluebook, ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Citing Legally, Peter Martin, Restatements, Ubiform Code
Bluebook (20th ed.) and Restatements, Model Codes, etc., by Peter Martin, Citing Legally
http://citeblog.access-to-law.com/
Prior to publication of the new Bluebook, law journals, lawyers, and judges were in pretty close agreement on how to cite a Restatement section (e.g., Restatement (Second) of Torts § 46 cmt. j (1965) [as cited in the May 2015 issue of the Harvard Law Review] or Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 349, cmt. a (1981) [as cited in an Aug. 2015 decision of the Seventh Circuit]). Journals put the titles in large and small caps. Lawyers and judges didn’t. Furthermore, consistent with their treatment of other static material, many lawyers and judges left off the date element. In an era in which briefs are held to a maximum word count, why include the redundant ‘(1965)’ or ‘(1981)’? The Bluebook reflected that consensus. Its prescribed formats for citations to provisions in Uniform Codes, Model Acts, the federal sentencing guidelines, and the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct were consistent with it. See The Bluebook R. 12.9.5 (19th ed. 2010).
Without warning the 20th edition of The Bluebook changed that. . . .
16 Wednesday Sep 2015
Posted in Abbreviations, Acronyms, Citations, Footnotes, Legal Writing, Legislative History, Numbers, Parentheses, Parentheticals, Punctuation, Quotations, String Citations, The Bluebook
≈ Comments Off on Have You Bought Your 20th Edition of The Bluebook®?
Personally, I’m waiting for Peter Martin at Cornell to update his excellent Bluebook® Cheat Sheet. But, if you want to know all things Bluebook®, I can recommend this website – https://www.legalbluebook.com/.
This website also provides a way to buy a hard copy, which is my preference when I use it regularly. If you use The Bluebook® at all, I recommend bookmarking and browsing here the entire website and its features. Yearly subscriptions are a reasonable rate.
The good news for Bluebook® users is that, at the beginning of every new edition, there is a list of the differences between this version and the last one. Here is a preview of what is new in the 20th Edition: https://www.legalbluebook.com/Public/Updates.aspx.
Yes, you will wonder about why some of the changes were made. That is a given. But isn’t it nice to have all the changes summarized and listed for you right up front. No guessing and no reason to search the entire book to find the updates. -CCE
22 Wednesday Apr 2015
Posted in Abbreviations, Appellate Writing, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Editing, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Readability
≈ Comments Off on A Novel Approach To Circuit Court’s Word Limit Rule. If Only It Had Worked!
Squished-Together Words Don’t Count As One, Federal Circuit Says; Appeal Is Tossed, by Debra Cassen Weiss, ABA Journal (with hat tip to William P. Statsky!)
A litigant that squeezed multiple words together and resorted to abbreviations didn’t satisfy word limits in its briefs and won’t be able to pursue its appeal, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The appeals court tossed the patent appeal by Pi-Net International in an April 20 order (PDF). How Appealing links to the opinion and a story by Law360 (sub. req.), which dubbed the creative wording ‘a trick straight out of high school English class.’ . . .
* * *
On appeal, JPMorgan objected to Pi-Net’s first brief, saying it attempted to evade the 14,000 word limit by deleting spaces between various words and squeezing them together, according to the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit offered an example: One case citation consists of 14 words, but Pi-Net squeezed them together to make them into one word. . . .
16 Thursday Apr 2015
Posted in Abbreviations, Acronyms, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, Court Rules, Courts, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Local Rules, Spell Checking
≈ Comments Off on Too Many Acronyms = Alphabet Soup.
Tags
ABA Journal, Abbreviations, Acronyms, Brief Writing, Court Rules, Debra Cassen Weiss, Legal Writing
Check Your Briefs For Acronym Overuse, DC Circuit Clerk Tells Lawyers In Campaign Finance Case, by Debra Cassen Weiss, ABA Journal
Acronyms continue to bedevil the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Parties before the court are advised in circuit rules to avoid little-known acronyms; lawyers who didn’t heed the advice were called out in a 2012 opinion. Now the clerk’s office is doing its part to police the briefs. . . .
28 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted in Abbreviations, Legal Writing
≈ Comments Off on Text And Tweet Abbreviations Are Okay – Sometimes.
Text Messaging, the Internet, and Formality, by Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl Blog
These admonitions apply to emails as well. -CCE
A few weeks ago I saw something that before then I had heard of but hadn’t seen myself: a smiley face in a very formal document, or, I suppose I should say, what should have been a very formal document. I literally thought of it and then sputtered for days.
There’s nothing new about cute abbreviations. OK, one of the most recognized English words in the world, came out of a cute abbreviation, and America’s founding fathers could have used the abbreviation IOU (for I owe you). A few decades later, the cost of sending a telegram encouraged people to use even more abbreviations and shortened forms of words. Today though, smartphone-wielding text messagers and tweeters may be playing with language and abbreviations more than ever before. And there’s nothing wrong with that! If you want to text your best buddy you’re going to be l8 (late) or that you LOLed (laughed out loud), have at it. That’s an appropriately informal situation. I just discovered that my phone has Halloween emoji, so you may be seeing ghosts or pumpkins on my Twitter feed soon. They look like fun.
But here are some formal documents in which you shouldn’t use emoji, smiley faces, or text messaging abbreviations: business plans, mission statements, resumes, cover letters, letters of recommendation, or pretty much any school assignment that I can think of right now. Seriously, you still need to take some things seriously.
22 Tuesday Jul 2014
Posted in Abbreviations, Acronyms, Appellate Law, Bad Legal Writing, Brief Writing, District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Readability, Style Manuals
≈ Comments Off on Senior Judge Shares Tip To Avoid “Lousy Brief Writing.”
Tags
Acronymns, Brief Writing, Bryan Garner, Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage, Initialisms, Legal Writing, Louisiana Appeals Blog, Raymond Ward, Senior Judge Laurence Silberman
Don’t Let Your Brief Be DOA, by Raymond Ward, Louisiana Civil Appeals Blog
Here is a briefwriting tip courtesy of Senior Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit: avoid overuse of uncommon initialisms.
Petitioner’s brief, unfortunately, was laden with obscure acronyms notwithstanding the admonitions in our handbook (and on our website) to avoid uncommon acronyms. Since the brief was signed by a faculty member at Columbia Law School, that was rather dismaying both because of ignorance of our standards and because the practice constitutes lousy brief writing. [Ouch!] . . . .
05 Saturday Jul 2014
Posted in Abbreviations, Acronyms, Initialisms, Legal Writing, References
≈ Comments Off on Internet’s Largest, Comprehensive Directory, and Search Engine for Acronyms, Abbreviations. and Initialisms.
Tags
Abbreviations, Abbreviations.com, Acronyms, DailyWritingTips Blog, Initialisms, Mark Nichol, Stands4 Netowrk
Abbreviations.com, a Member of the Stands4 Network
What the heck is an initialism? Happily, Mark Nichol at DailyWritingTips Blog has a complete explanation here: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/initialisms-and-acronyms/. -CCE
We are the world’s largest and most comprehensive directory and search engine for acronyms, abbreviations and initialisms on the Internet. Abbreviations.com holds hundreds of thousands of entries organized by a large variety of categories from computing and the Web to governmental, medicine and business and it is maintained and expanded by a large community of passionate editors. Read more about our awards and press coverage.
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